When ESPN searches for a campus to broadcast its weekly College GameDay show, its executives look for a college football game with compelling storylines and interesting angles.
This week, they decided on Penn State.
ESPN's weekly college football preview show will make its fourth appearance on the University Park campus this weekend, airing before the No. 24 Penn State football team takes on No. 1 Ohio State.
The show will air on Friday afternoon and from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday. GameDay last visited before Penn State's 2005 nighttime win over Ohio State. Like this weekend's game, both teams occupied places in the nation's top 25: The Nittany Lions were 16th and the Buckeyes were sixth in 2005.
"It's a great scene," ESPN spokesman Mike Humes said of the University Park campus before a home football game. "The last time we were there, it was fantastic."
Donnie Howard (junior-kinesiology) remembers that game well. Howard, a freshman at the time, could hear the rowdy GameDay crowd from his East Halls room.
"It was wild, crazy," he said.
Howard thought the 2005 atmosphere contributed to GameDay visiting Penn State this weekend.
"It definitely should come here," he said. "It's a huge game."
Jordan Cascino (junior-communications, arts and sciences), who founded the Paternoville Coordination Committee in 2006, expects this week to be similar to the week leading up to 2005's Penn State-Ohio State contest.
"It's starting to get a little nostalgic," Cascino said. "I fully expect everyone to go completely nuts."
Cascino remembers that week as a "weeklong party" -- camping out at Paternoville, seeing the GameDay crew set up for its broadcast and watching the excitement it generated.
Having that excitement all over again this year, Cascino said, should give the Lions an added advantage against Ohio State.
"They have everything to lose," Cascino said of the Buckeyes. "We have nothing to lose, and just about everything to gain."
Daniel Testa (junior-kinesiology) said, from an exposure standpoint, the publicity from the national broadcast is "good stuff" for the university.
Testa predicted GameDay analyst Lee Corso would pull on a Nittany Lion head. Each week, Corso lets the audience know which team he thinks will win by wearing its respective mascot's head.
"He likes to go with the home crowd," Testa said, adding, however, that his choices can be somewhat controversial and frustrating.
GameDay's first visit to Penn State happened in 1997, when Penn State lost to Michigan, 34-8. The GameDay crew returned for Penn State's 1999 game against Arizona, when the Lions beat the Wildcats, 41-7.
Mike Wisniewski (junior-electrical engineering) watches GameDay most weekends and said he'll go see the set Saturday afternoon for GameDay's most recent visit to Penn State.
"Hopefully," he said, "it will be like two years ago."
